Love laughs him off but he is right. Chateau Marmont is a country that doesn’t allow extradition, a safe zone, a haven, and everybody cares about me. Is my chair soft enough? Is my drink to my liking? Is it too hot? Too cold? Do I need a heat lamp? Do I eat shellfish? I have never been so nurtured and Love whispers—my parents, not so bad, right?—and I have a new respect for aspirations because this is a great way of life.

Forty breezes in and hugs me like we’re best friends. Ray huffs. “You see all those girls today for your audition but somehow your sister is the one who comes away with a new fella.”

Forty brushes it off. “She’s got the love, Pops.”

“Your father and I just want to see you happy,” Dottie adds.

“I know, Mom,” Forty says. “And I assure you, when I finish casting and finalize the rewrites and get my agent the bio he needs for that pilot shooting in Sedona and get him the rewrites he needs for that other pilot shooting in Culver, I assure you, dearest parents, I will meet a very nice girl and get married and pop out two perfect children. Maybe even twins.”

Love laughs. “You’re horrible.”

But Forty’s not done. “Because it’s very easy to meet available beautiful babes while I’m heading up five projects at once.” He knocks back a shot of tequila. “But tonight, to Mom and Dad, on Dad’s half birthday.”

In my navy blazer over a plain T-shirt, I pass as one of these people at Chateau. Ray tells stories about the good old days, running around the first Pantry, working doubles for pennies—his parents gave him nothing, that was a different time—and Dottie says the past is the past. She says you can’t pretend you have nothing when you have so much. She squeezes my arm. “See, his father was the owner and my dad was the butcher so it’s only because of me that he knows what it was to be poor.”

“I understand,” I say.

“Of course you do,” she says. “You’re from New York.”

Love keeps her hand on my inner thigh. This is a family and Ray and Dottie like me because I work for a living. I could live like this but Westward Ho! is, by definition, about expansion and our party is larger all the time. Friends come by this half-birthday party and Love has to go be nice. Forty slaps an arm on my back.

“You don’t work in the business, right?” he asks.

“No,” I confirm. “I get a kick out of it though.”

“Your notes were of value,” he says. He tears into three packets of artificial sweetener. “Which is precisely what this business needs.”

He wants a high five and I’m there and he’s talking about Almost Famous and he vents. “People here don’t like to think. They’re afraid of it, like if they do it there’s no turning back. But you’re a thinker. You’re like that statue. I can tell. I see that.”

“Thanks,” I say.

Ray leans in. “He’s a professor.”

Forty nods. And this is a nickname I can handle, The Professor, and Love returns, dangles her arms over me, and whispers in my ear, Professor.

“No,” I say. “It’s The Professor.”

Ray claps and here comes our unofficial guest of honor, producer Barry Stein. Everyone rises for Barry Stein, and then Bradley Fucking Cooper—Chateau!—is hugging him, inviting him to sit. And now, Barry is coming for us. He’s so West Coast that he could have been in Ocean’s Eleven. He wants us to sit. He doesn’t smile. He’s too cool to smile. Dottie is devastated that he’s come on his own.

“The wife and nanny are in the dumps over Henny,” he says, and that’s a new one, Henny. He switches gears, not unlike Delilah, and slings an arm around Love. “But Dottie, if it pains you to see me all alone, I’ll gladly take this one right here.”

Fucking pig but Love’s father laughs and Love excuses herself for the ladies’ room with a kiss on my cheek. Stein sighs. “All the good ones are taken.”

Dottie smiles. “This is Lovey’s new friend Joe. He’s brilliant.”

Ray endorses me too. “This kid’s got the goods, Barry.”

Barry says it’s nice to meet me and I don’t like him and I don’t like the rich, blond motherfucker approaching this table. His hat says VINEYARD VINES and his T-shirt says FOUR SEAS ICE CREAM and when I wanted to come here in a T-shirt and jeans, we had to go shopping. Love returns from the restroom and hugs this man. “Milo, it’s so good to see you.”

The waitresses makes room for him and Dottie kisses him and invites him to dinner and Forty elbows me. “Don’t waste your time turning green,” he says. “Milo is just our brother from another mother.”

I tell Forty I’m fine and then I’m on my feet, extending my hand. Milo opens up for a hug. “Fuck that,” he says. “Bring it in.”

Milo’s eyes are too big, his smile pandering. He’s overly gracious with the waitresses, too complimentary of the cake that Dottie got for Ray. He’s a fucking liar to the bone. He’s a television producer. “By trade,” he says. “But my heart is in the theater.”

I want to know if his dick has been in Love and she says that he’s way too self-deprecating. All people have a blind spot. Love’s is Milo. She doesn’t understand that he deliberately undersells himself so that she will gush over him. “Milo is amazing,” she raves. “Unlike me, he stayed in law school.” He looks down bashfully and immediately I know that they were fucking on September 11th. Love goes on. “And Milo isn’t just a producer, he’s the producer. He’s the reason New Blood, Connecticut won all those awards. He just knows so much.”

Milo smiles. “The lady doth exaggerate. Please, be a friend, tell me about you.”

But Love cuts me off. “Joe,” she says. “Milo is also a fantastic writer. He’s just back from Martha’s Vineyard where his movie played at the festival, right?”

“Actually it was Nantucket,” he says. “And I think Uncle Barry might have had a hand in that. And it’s just a short.”

I look at Barry Stein, who just shakes his head. “All I did was watch the movie, officer. I swear.”

We all laugh as if this is funny and it isn’t and Milo tells everyone about his short fucking film and Love pays attention to him, not me. I am not involved in this conversation and I slip away to find out a little bit more about this fucker. I go online and learn that Milo is Barry Stein’s godson, not his nephew. I learn that he and Ben Stiller posed for photos together less than twenty-four hours ago. I learn that his short is a based-on-fact retelling of the most searing event of Milo Benson’s childhood, when his older brother shocked Darien, Connecticut, by murdering Milo’s father, hedge fund owner Charles Benson, in cold blood.

Fucking Republicans. They kill each other over money and then the liberal boy left over takes all the cash and makes a career out of repurposing this one event from his childhood, first into a book of drawings and then into a Vanity Fair essay and then into his TV show.

I head back to the table, where Milo and Forty fight for the attention and approval of Barry Stein, who says Milo’s ideas have tremendous potential but pats Forty on the back and tells him that his ideas need work. These are two very different statements, which is idiotic because at the end of the day, either you have something or you don’t. Milo orders an açai bowl and Forty orders a Patrón double. I nudge Forty and tell him that last idea sounded good.

Forty nods and Ray raises his glass. “To family, to food, to fun, to the fast and furious.”

Ray and Dottie are proof that money can buy happiness and Forty groans—Dad, enough with those movies—and Love laughs. “Joe,” she says. “Something you have to know about my dad, he is obsessed with Fast and Furious movies.”